exempli gratia

A black bird glides down to the billboard outside Ellen's apartment. She sips a London Fog as the bird sidles into the crowded line of preening starlings, causing a jostling ripple to the unlucky few pushed off the edges.

Ellen cranks her window open and invites the morning breeze into her home, then scoots her favorite reading chair, plush and checkered, toward it. The Argenta district bustles below her. It's cozy, with murals of dogs bursting from block letters "Dogtown Proud" on the opposite building, which houses a jazz bar, cafe-bakery, and community theater. The quiet city recently embellished the narrow sidewalks with planters clad with fresh flowers and bistro tables marking every restaurant. 

A bell’s gentle ringing floats into the apartment, the smell of freshly baked bread and espresso close behind. Ellen leans over the windowsill and notices the fringe of a thick plaid scarf caught in the bakery’s door. A tug, and it’s gone. She settles back into her chair.

Peeking over the mural are the little black birds taking a rest on the ugly sign. Ellen knows little about birds, but she enjoys these, particularly when they line the billboard to drop old feathers that fall like dark snow onto the sidewalks, cushioning the leaves from passers-by wearing thick leather boots or pointy pumps.

She especially enjoys the bird droppings streaked down the gargantuan sign. She considers billboards a blight on the skyline and protests them with intentional ignorance, scolding herself when her eyes catch on the flashing political ads or empty promises painted in thick red letters: “EXIT HERE FOR THE BEST FRIED CHICKEN IN THE SOUTH” or “Injured? Call Steve, Steeve, and Steevie at  1(800)-SAVE-ME!”

This particular billboard was relatively new, a favorite of the birds, and annoyingly unavoidable. Her eyes were drawn to it even with the charming 2023 Christmas festival in the square just outside of her periphery. Next to Pride, it was the only time the square saw much foot traffic. A giant tree, ice skating, and the town’s humble red trolley drenched in LEDs – not enough to tempt her gaze. 

Today, like many mornings since the latest investor plastered their advertisement, she smiled. Fourteen feet of “Believe in Jesus or suffer HELL!” acting as the birds’ preferred public toilet. Both the yellow halo clipart hovering over Jesus’s head juxtaposed by the pixelated fire behind HELL were splattered with the birds' breakfasts of early worms and bread crumbs that had littered the bakery’s sidewalk. 

How much did this person (lobbyist?) pay for their billboard just to be shit on? Ellen thinks fondly of the birds.

She sips her tea. Still too sweet, but she drinks ‘till the milky tide recedes to reveal a clay snail secured at the bottom of the mug. Engraved on the snail’s pink shell, initials: c.a. 

The birds had distracted her. She sets the mug onto a letter-cluttered side table and adjusts her robe. She wasn’t too old to wake up and dress immediately as her mother would have. Doris dressed for church, grocery runs, cooking, cleaning, even lounging on the wicker daybed out back. Her mother would’ve hated this robe, and not purely that Ellen wore it past 9:00 most days. She'd hate that it was fleece instead of cotton and a masculine pattern – red and green checkers. 

Ellen would have argued that it was a Christmas robe, for winter only (a lie), but even so, she hears her mother’s lips purse, blowing out a breath laced with judgment, before scolding, “Robes are for the bathroom and the bedroom. One step outside of those, and you’re just asking for people to call you lazy.”

Laziness. Sloth. Anything comfortable ought to have that description in Doris’ eyes. Ellen wasn’t too lazy for rollers, at least. She checked them, unraveling each, and pretending to the shadows in the room that she wasn’t stealing glances at the sealed enveloped signed c.a., addressed to e.g. 

She shook as she touched it, but that was silly. Keeping it pristine wasn’t possible. She couldn’t imagine it new, pure white and spotless, back when she’d longed for it most. Opening it would barely change the condition — would likely be a blessing for it, allowing the letter within to breathe after thirty-odd years of captivity. It's splattered with statins and spots, grooves and folds and pilling, stretchmarks implying a time it was caught in the rain, and dried in the sun. An entire lifetime it's traveled. On the front are multiple red stamps and quick scribbles from post workers (“Return to Sender"), many old addresses crossed out, and arrows pointing to the next best guess. So many stamps and scrawls that someone had taken the liberty to package it a second time in a black padded envelope, the front sporting a sticker simply addressed to “e.g. Argenta, Little Rock, AR.”

Ellen shed the packaging when it arrived brightly at 7:00, right when the kettle sang for her attention, water boiled. 

Only one person called her e.g., dedicated to the joke born in a university library.

—-------------

1970

Ellen poured over an English essay for Intro to Word Literature, Carson Anderson prodding her in the ribs with her fountain pen. 

“You asked me to proofread,” Ellen whispered, pushing Carson’s legal pad back. 

“What’s wrong with ‘i.e.’?” Carson frowns and tugs on her corn yellow braids. She bleached them last week, but she thought they washed out her skin, which was already pale. “I thought that was clever.”

“The sentence is fine. You’re just using the wrong abbreviation. It’s ‘e.g.’ here, not ‘i.e.’ because—” 

Carson cocks her head, scrutinizing. Her typically warm gaze sharpened. Then she smirked. “E.g., huh?”

Ellen shoots a look from the corner of her eye, squinting at Carson’s sly expression. “...yes. ‘I.e.’ means ‘that is.’ You’re using it like ‘for example,’ and ‘e.g.’ stands for —.”

“Eleanor Grace.” Carson wiggles her brows. They’re bushy brown, much darker than her lightened hair, the same color as her dark brown eyes when they into a warm cacao as she grinned. 

Ellen groans. “Oh, Lord.”

Carson wags her finger. “Ah, ah, ah! That sounds like blasphemy to me. Might have to give old Doris a ring.”

“No need.” Ellen turns back to her essay and marks out a sentence. “God’s already let her know, probably.” 

“Always filling her in, huh?”

“More than’s considered decent in polite society.” Ellen’s lips tug at the left corner, mimicking Carson’s grin.

“Doesn’t sound like a bad time.”

It’s Ellen’s turn to smirk. “God prefers virgins.”

Carson snatches Ellen’s pages and holds them above her head. “Perfect for you, then!”

“God, no.”

“There you go again. A blasphemous virgin!”

“Shh!” Ellen suppresses laughter and reaches for her paper, the bench scraping beneath her. A lone student shoots a glare from the end of the table. “Doris definitely wouldn’t approve of this conversation.” 

“Doris isn’t here,” Carson leans close, whispering directly into the curve of Ellen’s neck. “Surprised she doesn’t leave your dad for Him.”

“She would if He knocked on her door.”

Carson shrugs. “I would, too.”

“Says the girl who’s never getting married.”

“Ugh, not to a man.”

Ellen snorts. “So, never.”

“But to a god?” Another shrug. “Who’s to say?”

“Not I,” Ellen mocks in a posh accent.

“You even sound like a virgin.” 

“Like I said, God prefers virgins. So I’d have a better chance than you.”

Carson pouts. “Yeah, yeah, my dad made sure of that.”

Ellen suck in a breath. “Carson—!”

“No crying. It was a joke.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“Well, I am. And back to the point, ‘e.g.’ You just want to worm your way into every part of my life.” 

Ellen caps her pen. No more writing at this rate. “That’s not how I remember it.” 

“You’re not still annoyed?”

“I’m sitting here, aren’t I?”

Carson purses her lips and flips her legal pad open, pretending to read her work. “You weren’t very happy with me.”

“I make a great London Fog,” Ellen snaps, snatching Carson’s paper back to make more edits. “I didn’t ask for help.”

Her friend holds up her hands in surrender. “When I see a girl making my favorite drink, I have to talk to her. It’s basically Biblical.”

“Does scripture say to insult her, too? Must have missed that chapter.”

“The milk ratio was way off.”

“Maybe I like ‘em bitter.” 

Carson loops her pinky into Ellen’s. “Well, I like ‘em sweet.”

Ellen’s cheeks burn. She doesn’t make eye contact. “Wrong girl.”

A library aide pushes a cart down their aisle. Ellen frees her pinky. Carson lets her. “I’m good at compromising.”

“Just write your paper," Ellen mumbles.

“Anything for you, e.g.”

They uncap their pens, shoes knocking under the table. 

—---------

1998

e.g.,

you once told me not to use i.e. in my paper. I used it wrong. “Use e.g. instad,” you said. I finally learned what it meant yesterday. exempli gratia. 

I should have listened. I left i.e. in there, id est. and dr. jay marked me down for it. not by much, you’d already fixed up the rest of it. He said the same thing. “It’s e.g. that you’re looking for here.” Ever since, I can’t write e.g. without thinking of you. and dr. jay, too.

I didnt listen. you warned me, and I laughed it off. I teased you for being particular. But I wasn’t one to compromise ever. On tea, on writing, on anything. Especially, on us. 

You wanted to keep trying even when it wasn’t perfect. But i had to have everything. The grand adventures, public romances, the house, the marriage, the attention, acceptance. You didn’t care; you would be happy with what you had, me and you, spitting rent, arms linked, embracing inside our home. But i couldn't wait. And i let you go. 

For what? The girls in france, a life abroad. Following every instinct with no attachments. None. but one.

‘e.g.’

It’s littered in every letter i write and every one I don’t have the courage to finish. I’m back in Arkansas. that’s why I’m writing now but you’re not here. doris nearly called the police to get me off her porch. You know what she said? “Eleanor’s nowhere near heaven and one step to Hell. That’s all I know, and all you need to hear.”

So I’m writing this letter in hopes it will reach you, wherever you are. I want to make London Fogs again. I promise I’ll lighten up on the milk. You’re plenty sweet enough for me. If someone reads this (i.e., the post man*), know that, yes, I’ve loved a lot of people, but please find e.g. She’s the only one worth remembering. 

See you soon,

c.a.

*did I do it right? you can tell me over tea. 

—-----------------------------------

The heavy apartment door creeks open. A woman enters wearing a thick plaid scarf wrapped around her face at least three times. “Ellie!” The scarf muffles her voice. “Got you more tea!”

“And a few other things.” Ellen peers at the fresh baguette sticking out of Cynthia’s market bag. The scent of chocolatey-sweet pain au chocolat accompanies it. 

“Can’t have tea without breakfast.” Cynthia drops the bags onto the counter, scratches their rescue cat Nimble behind her good ear, and perches on the arm of Ellen’s chair. 

“Take off that scarf so I can kiss ya,” Ellen orders, tugging at its fringe. 

Cynthia obliges, unraveling the thick fabric from under her hair, setting the box braids free. She leans in, but Ellen stops her.

“Wait. Let me get a good look first.”

Cynthia rolls her eyes, but the corners of her mouth lift, just like Ellen’s. She’s wearing a rich plum lipstick that compliments her eclectic outfit, using the same shade to blush her cheeks, which was deepend by the nip of the chill morning.

Ellen smiles. “Just as I thought…”

“Radiant,” they say in unison, giggling into a kiss. They part, and Cynthia spots the letter. “What have you got there?”

Ellen loosens her grip on the letter, which was tighter than she realized. “An old letter. Got here a few minutes ago.”

“Looks like it lost its way.” The envelope crinkles where Cynthia pinches the corner. 

“For a while, yeah. But it found me.” Ellen gestures at the envelope with her chin. “From Carson.”

Cynthia’s eyes widen, and she straightens her back. “My! An awful old letter. She’s the traveler, yeah? From—”

“Yep.”

“Wow.” She makes an ‘o’ with her lips. “Vintage.”

Ellen elbows her off the armrest. Cynthia devolves into cackles. “I’m only a few years older than you!” Ellen snaps. 

“Ten years, granny!”

Ellen juts out her tongue, offering the letter to Cynthia. She flicks her nose and backs away. “No, no. You’ll fill me in.”

“Okay.” Ellen settles back into her chair, looking into the horizon. The birds have abandoned their perch. All but one.

Mugs clink as Cynthia clears the tea graveyard from Ellen’s windowsill. 

“I can get that—”

“Nope,” Cynthia says. “Was gonna make us tea anyway. Keep looking at the birds. You look real sweet there.”

“Okay.”

“London Fog?” Cynthia unwraps the pain au chocolat and fills the kettle. 

“You know it.” Ellen hesitates. “But…”

“Mmmm?” Cynthia opens the honey; she prefers it over the milk. 

“Pour a little more milk in this time, would ya?”

Cynthia lifts one eyebrow. “If you’re sure.” She knows Ellen’s recipe by heart, her perfect ratio. 

Ellen nods. “I’m sure. And a little honey while you’re at it.”